Update: Tackling Stigma in Social Housing Online Event

44 residents registered for our virtual event on Tackling Stigma in Social Housing, with 11 attendees on the day!

As part of our ongoing commitment to engage with residents, we held our latest virtual resident engagement event on Wednesday 9 June with the theme on Tackling Stigma in Social Housing.

The event took place on Microsoft Teams and was hosted by Helen Evans, Chief Executive with an introduction section followed by a virtual group discussion. The discussions were centered around hearing feedback from residents exploring the causes of stigma in social housing and discuss what steps we can take to combat it as an organisation and social housing provider.

Thank you to all residents who attended our event. The purpose of the event was to hear directly from residents, your thoughts and views on this wide-ranging issue.

For those of you who missed the event here’s what we discussed and some of the feedback we received from residents on the day.

During the event residents were asked the following questions:

• Do you feel affected by stigma due to renting your home from a housing association?
• Do you feel people treat you differently because you live in a housing association property? If so how? 
• What do you feel the driving factors behind this stigma are? 

Main feedback

• The importance of residents being given respect including the way they are treated and spoken to.
• Housing Association residents are often being profiled by others (Negative mindset there is a certain type of person who lives in social housing properties).
• The push for home-ownership is a contributing factor to the cycle of stigma in social housing
• The media plays a part in driving this stigma.
• The quality in the condition of some social housing rented properties compared with privately owned or rented properties.
• Some residents living in mixed tenure blocks stated that they have, and still do feel stigmatised.

What happens next?

The feedback from this event will be used and fed into an action plan that is being created to highlight the issue to all staff members at Network and make tangible changes across the organisation.

Look out for more events over the coming months! Check out the schedule and more information here: Virtual Resident Engagement Events Schedule